How can you deny the deaths of millions of Jews?
Photo: AP
Prosecuting Holocaust denial
It's ironic that Austria, rather than Britain, has finally arrested David Irving
British historian David Irving has made a name for himself as the ultimate Holocaust denier and has become a strong supporter for the neo-Nazis.
For decades, Irving has used all his strength to "explain" that the annihilation of European Jewry never actually happened, that Adolf Hitler didn't know Jews under his rule were in danger and that Jews were not systematically murdered in gas chambers.
Irving claims that we, the survivors of Auschwitz, who lived for months and years under the shadow of gas chambers and ovens, are simply lying and spreading slander about the Germans.
"All lies, exaggeration and invention of the Jews," this half-Jew (what can you do) has written time and again.
In the absence of laws criminalizing Holocaust denial and incitement in his native Britain, this dangerous man has poisoned the minds of millions of people around the world. His audacity knows no bounds.
In the 1990s he even sued American author Deborah Lipstadt – in Britain, of course – for libel, following publication of her book "Denying the Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory" in which she attacks Irving.
He lost, but that did not derail his venomous and dangerous activities – writing articles and addressing conferences, presenting his "proofs" over and over.
Why Austria and not Britain?
Last month, Irving traveled to Austria for an appearance as a guest speaker for a convention of a radical nationalist party. He apparently didn't know that Austria has laws against denying the Holocaust. Or perhaps he did know there was a warrant out for his arrest, but figured it had been issued so long ago that it had expired. Or perhaps he figured they wouldn't dare act against him.
Austrian authorities felt a bit differently, and Irving was arrested and jailed, currently until the end of December, so the state could prepare its case against him.
It is interesting that Austria, of all countries – the country that supplied Nazi Germany not only with its Fuehrer, but also with a long line of SS officers that were among the most brutal and cruel cogs in the entire German destruction machine – would bring a Holocaust denier to justice.
In Britain, a country that fought against Germany and paid a heavy price in the fight against an evil that, amongst other things, planned, organized and carried out the destruction of 6 million Jews, Irving is free to do his work freely, without suspicion or worry.
But more than 60 years after the allied victory, the fall of the Third Reich and the liberation of the few survivors of the death camps, Britain, of all countries, has no law prohibiting Holocaust denial, whereas Austria and Germany do. And that is the greatest joke of all.
